1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to a computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for pausing, migrating, and restarting retail point-of-sale transactions to a different point-of-sale terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a retail environment, customers typically experience delays in checkout lines to pay for purchased items, return merchandise, or signup for store credit cards. Customers who have large amounts of items to be purchased often cause the checkout line to stagnate. Such delays in the checkout process can result in delayed service to customers, poor customer satisfaction, and potentially fewer sales transactions.
A delay in the checkout process can also occur when a customer wants to purchase one or more additional items after the retail clerk has already started a checkout transaction for the customer's items. For example, the customer may need to step out of the checkout line to “quickly grab” the additional item in the store. In this situation, a retail clerk may perform one of the following example actions to resolve this situation. In the first example, the retail clerk may wait for the customer to return with the additional items, while the other customers continue to wait in the checkout line. In a second example, the retail clerk may cancel the current transaction for customer A on the clerk's register in order to service the next customer, customer B, in the checkout line. When customer A returns with the additional item, the retail clerk may then start a new transaction for customer A on the same register, wherein the clerk must ring up all of the items to be purchased by customer A, including those original items previously processed by the clerk and the new items. In the third example, the retail clerk may cancel the current transaction for customer A on the clerk's register, and then start a new transaction on a different register for customer B if the cancellation process takes some time to complete on the first register. When customer A returns with the additional item, the clerk still must ring up all of the items to be purchased by customer A, including those original items previously processed by the clerk and the new items. In the fourth example, the retail clerk may save the current transaction data for customer A on the clerk's register to a database managed by a store server. The retail clerk may then service other customers in line. When customer A returns with the additional item, the retail clerk may then start a new transaction for customer A on a different register by retrieving the saved current transaction data from the database. By using the saved transaction data, the clerk only needs to ring up the new items to be purchased by customer A for the new transaction.
While these existing solutions enable the retail clerk to allow the customer to purchase the customer's desired items, these existing solutions either require the retail clerk to delay the checkout process for other customers in line, cancel the current transaction for customer A and subsequently re-enter the same transaction data for the customer on the same or a different terminal, or require the retail system to have a dedicated store server which is used to manage the database and provide stored transaction data to the retail clerk at a different register when requested.